CONTINUITY CAPITAL: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF INSTITUTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66104/sq9pa258Keywords:
Continuity Capital, Institutional Intelligence, State Capacity, Organizational Learning, Intergenerational TransmissionAbstract
Public organizations invest decades accumulating institutional intelligence, yet political transitions, administrative reforms, leadership turnover, and generational replacement frequently erode that accumulated asset. Existing frameworks—including institutional memory, organizational learning, dynamic capabilities, intellectual capital, and state capacity—illuminate important aspects of this challenge but do not systematically explain how institutional intelligence is preserved, transmitted, adapted, and mobilized across successive managerial generations. This article introduces Continuity Capital, defined as the accumulated institutional asset produced by the organizational capacities of preservation, transmission, reconfiguration, and mobilization of institutional intelligence over time. The construct addresses a neglected intertemporal dimension of public administration: the capacity of organizations to transmit institutional intelligence across generations without transmitting its obsolescences. Drawing on conceptual paper methodology and integrating insights from organizational learning, dynamic capabilities, and historical institutionalism, the article develops a theoretical framework comprising four constitutive dimensions, five structural antecedents, three contextual moderators, four institutional consequences, and seven falsifiable propositions. The framework also advances the State Capacity Paradox, which highlights that organizations may display high levels of state capacity at a given moment while lacking the mechanisms required to sustain that capacity over time. In addition, the article introduces the concept of Negative Continuity Capital, demonstrating how transmission processes may reproduce institutional rigidities, obsolete routines, and dysfunctional legacies when reconfiguration mechanisms are weak. By distinguishing Continuity Capital from adjacent constructs and proposing a multimethod research agenda, the article contributes a new analytical lens for understanding institutional continuity, organizational sustainability, and the long-term production of public value in contexts marked by political and administrative disruption.
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